Preston North End’s poor form home form continued as Queens Park Rangers beat them 1-0 and usurped them in the Championship table. After the very encouraging 4-1 win over Blackburn Rovers last week, it was hoped North End could cement their place in the top six heading into Christmas, but as we have witnessed so many times before it was a chalk and cheese performance from the previous one.
We need to learn to kick on after a good win
It seems every time we sneak into the top six, or pull a win out of the bag that no one was expecting, we follow it up with a disappointing, turgid display that sees us fall out of the top six again. We then spend the next ten games trying to sneak back into there until it all happens again.
It’s very frustrating, by no means does anyone expect us to be in the play-off places, but when we do find ourselves there, it’s as if we get a nosebleed and must come back down to more familiar surroundings. It’s happened countless times before. In 2019/20 we headed into the pandemic break in the top six, and then after the first game back we fell out, never to return again that season.
We also failed to grasp a huge opportunity in Alex Neil’s first season with the club when we faced a crucial game with Derby County. Alan Browne missed a penalty and then Tom Lawrence scored a free-kick for The Rams. That game proved to be the difference between us making it into the play-offs and Derby doing so.
The mentality has to change, we have to attack games on the back of good wins, and try and build some momentum because it’s just too stop and start.
Home form needs to rapidly improve
It’s been poor all season, and that’s why many were surprised that we had somehow sneaked into the top six last week. Because the majority of games that fans have witnessed show we’re nowhere near some of the best teams in the league. The loss on Saturday was our fifth at home already this season, and we are only halfway through. If you extrapolate that and we lose 10 out of 23 at home then that’s close to relegation form. It means you could only get a maximum of 39 points from the other games, but as we know, we had too many draws at the start of the season.
Our home form has us in 20th place in the table, with just three wins there hasn’t been much for the fans to shout about. We’ve only scored seven goals at Deepdale as well, and it leads to a poor atmosphere and it’s a struggle to motivate the players when we have become accustomed to gutless performances.
By stark contrast we have the best away form in the league, winning six and only losing two. Ryan Lowe needs to work out what the difference is.
A poor game from Lindsay
Nobody had a decent game on Saturday, apart from perhaps Alvaro Fernandez, but Liam Lindsay particularly struggled. We have become very reliant on his strong displays in the heart of defence all season, but on Saturday the defence looked all over the place. QPR were tearing through us in the first half, and we were getting nowhere near them. It was a relief to go into the break at 0-0 but in the end their winning goal came from the scrappiest of routes. A corner bounced of Jimmy Dunne into the net, and even he didn’t know much about it.
I don’t know whether the squad were struggling with illness but they all seemed way off it. It was the sort of display we had expected before the game against Blackburn when we saw the team, but whilst they surprised us on that day, this showed we were really missing the absent first team players.
Cross-Adair given a huge chance
With more than half of the bench 18 or under, it fell to Finlay Cross-Adair to go and chase the game for us. Ben Woodburn had missed a glaring opportunity in the second half and Ched Evans wasn’t quite his disruptive self. Cross-Adair was thrown on with 25 minutes to go by Lowe, and did his best to try and create some chances. Mikey O’Neill was next in line, and even though it didn’t result in an euqaliser it’s good to see Lowe give them a chance when everyone else is unavailable.
However the introduction of Bambo Diaby at right-wing back was very unexpected. He did show some great pace though, and you can never knock his efforts. He managed to win a corner after a bursting run at one stage but again it shows the lack of depth in that position.
Late on we also saw Brad Potts connect very well with a Fernandez back post cross, but he couldn’t quite cut across it enough to swerve it back on target, but a great effort nonetheless.